Aging Douglas port gets fixes, but more wanted
DOUGLAS – On any given day, the limitations on this border community’s aging port of entry are apparent, and the problems keep adding up over time.
Passenger cars waiting to cross into the United States routinely weave through heavy traffic among 18-wheelers that must navigate strikingly sharp turns to access the commercial gate nearby.
The sharp turns are the same reason a rising number of passenger buses crossing through Douglas must use the widest lane, which is also used for expedited crossings. That causes delays at times.
“It just gets to be incredibly tight,” said Isidro Lagos, the assistant port director. “And it is truly a ballet.”
Once the vehicles make it past the structure that houses six lanes of booths, they hardly have enough space to maneuver through secondary checkpoints, a big problem for even larger cars and buses.
“We’ve got to work with what we’ve got,” Lagos added.
The ideal solution, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection and to local stakeholders in the region, is the modernization of the current facility and the construction of a new commercial port of entry.
Plans have been moving slowly. Congress has yet to set aside the money needed for such a large-scale project. However, developments in the past few months have given local leaders encouragement about the federal government’s commitment to the area.
Last month, construction crews began work to expand the pedestrian facility at the Raúl Héctor Castro Port of Entry, as it’s officially known. It will be the latest in a string of renovations to address the aging port’s infrastructure woes.
The $484,000 expansion project will add a third lane at the pedestrian facility. It would also make improvements to the building’s design. Since the port sits at a lower altitude than the neighboring Mexican city of Agua Prieta, it’s highly prone to flooding when it rains.
But CBP officials said these upgrades are only a short-term fix.
“We are constrained from our cargo facility to our outbound lane. We have a set footprint,” Lago said. “The traffic coming continues to grow. Our officers
continue to exhibit ingenuity and creativity every day in getting the mission done. But again, our parameters are our parameters.”
Construction work is expected to be completed in September. It’ll be one of two big milestones for the aging facility this fall.
After several months of lobbying, the federal government set aside enough funds to complete a feasibility study, an assessment of current needs at the port of entry and action plan to address them.
They awarded the contract to Line and Space, a Tucson company.
“There’s a lot of stuff happening,” Douglas Mayor Robert Uribe said. “When you really look at what’s happening at Douglas, Arizona, there’s definitely momentum right now.”
Built in 1933, the border crossing in Douglas has undergone several renovations and expansions, the most significant one in 1993. The city’s fortunes are tied to the port’s well-being.
After the latest expansion, the population of Douglas grew steadily. But it peaked in 2011 and has been declining ever since. Meanwhile, on the Mexican side, its sister city of Agua Prieta has grown rapidly, nearly doubling in size during that same time period.
Advocates point to trends in trade and travel to signal the need for a separate commercial facility. Data from the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that passenger traffic at their shared port has been rising since 2010, particularly the number of bus passengers that cross through the area.
“As time has gone on, that ebb and flow has altered,” Lagos said. “Our traffic patterns became to where we needed to keep lanes open for longer. The traffic stayed steadier and our slow periods shrunk dramatically.”
Commercial traffic has more or less remained steady. The volume is comparable to what the San Luis port of entry in southwestern Arizona processes. San Luis, unlike Douglas, has a dedicated port of commercial traffic.
One of the features unique to the Douglas area is its dependence on mining on both sides of the border. It is common to see heavy machinery and large mining equipment such as drills and tires weaving around passenger vehicles. Cargo trucks carrying hazardous chemicals used in mining are common.
“It’s not just a necessity. It’s basically an urgent need, on infrastructure alone,” Sergio Laborin Hurtado said. He’s the customs manager for the Gildan maquiladora in Agua Prieta, and a member of the local maquiladora association.
He said that growth on the Mexican side in terms of population and business has already surpassed the facility’s capacity on both sides of the border.
Despite advances in programs such as Unified Cargo Processing, which allows joint inspections by customs officers from both countries, Laborin Hurtado said space constraints still lead to bottlenecks at the port that can be detrimental to businesses.
“Time lost is money lost,” he added. While there has been some progress on the U.S. side to move forward to find solutions, Laborin Hurtado said he doesn’t sense the necessary political will or funding.
“I’ve spent 15 years listening to proposals about a new customs facility,” he said. “It’s been a joint proposal between the U.S. and Mexico and, unfortunately, it’s never gone through.”
Ricardo Martinez Terrazas, the director of Sonora’s transportation department, said they’ve seen some progress. He pointed to the pending donation of private land on the Mexican side, just west of Agua Prieta, to be used for a new commercial facility. And he said the government is also doing its own studies.
“In the next few months, approximately, we should have some favorable results and resources from the federal government so we can move forward with plans to modernize the port,” he said.
Despite these advances on the ground, there is still no clear timeline for when construction on the modernization and possible construction of a separate commercial facility could take place.
U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, an Arizona Republican who represents the Douglas area in Congress, has been very active in pressuring the federal government for resources for a two-port solution. She boasted that because of her efforts, the project is now in the government’s fiveyear plan.
McSally said the results of the feasibility study will allow them to put a price tag on the project. She added that she expects the modernization to be included in an appropriation bill as early as the next fiscal year.
“We could find ourselves in a situation where we have the opportunity to be added in, in the final negotiation of some sort of funding bill,” McSally said. “I don’t think that’s off the table because the feasibility study will be wrapped up by that time.”
In the meantime, construction work will continue for what CBP officials describe as the most significant construction project the Douglas port facility has had in years.
As part of that work, customs officers shut down one of the seven vehicle lanes to set up a temporary pedestrian processing area while the existing building is renovated.
“As people come in, they’re going to be funneled logically and efficiently, expediently to expedite the traffic through,” Lagos said. “Unfortunately it a short-term inconvenience.”
It’s a needed inconvenience Uribe, the Douglas mayor, said. But he added that the long-term sights are set on the two-port solution.
“We are on the same page and really creating a one message to be able to carry on,” he said.